Scientists in Florida have found traces of rat lungworm in five counties, bolstering the idea that this potentially fatal parasite may be expanding its geographical range on account of—you guessed it—climate change.
Researchers at Liverpool John Moore’s University have reconstructed the face of a man who lived in Dublin some 500 years ago. Incredibly accurate reconstructions like this are providing archaeologists with new way of studying the past—while also allowing them to visualize some of the most forgotten figures in history.
The world’s most famous yellow submarine has returned home after a successful mission to Antarctica’s Weddell Sea. Expedition organizers say Boaty McBoatface captured “unprecedented” data during its maiden voyage, analyzing deep sea currents at depths exceeding 13,000 feet.
Wolves and dogs are separated by 15,000 years of evolution, during which time the species have veered off into radically different directions. Dogs still retain many of their ancestral behaviors, but less is known about any latent “dog-like” tendencies among modern wolves. A new study of human-raised wolf pups…
New research shows that industrial fisheries are responsible for dumping nearly 10 million tons of perfectly good fish back into the ocean each year—enough to fill 4,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. This news comes at a time when nearly 90 percent of the world’s fish stocks are threatened by overfishing.
Humans may have big, bulbous brains, but when it comes to pure muscle power, we’re often considered the weakest of the great apes. Even chimpanzees, who are significantly smaller than us, exhibit levels of strength that are practically super-human by our standards. New research shows the degree to which our primate…
With the Great Barrier Reef under unprecedented environmental stress, a new report is raising the alarm in terms of its potential economic loss. Valued at Aus$56 billion (US$42 billion), the largest living structure on Earth is now deemed “too big to fail.”
Claiming that evolution is “debatable, controversial, and too complicated for students,” Turkey’s board of education has decided to stop teaching Darwinian natural selection in its schools. The move has infuriated the country’s secular opposition, but it could embolden other countries to do the same.
Investigators in Chile have released thousands of declassified documents dating back to the Second World War, revealing the extent to which Nazi spies had infiltrated the country. Among the more shocking revelations is the discovery of a Nazi plot to destroy the Panama Canal—an act that would have changed “the history…
Thousands of years ago, indigenous people living in the California Channel Islands relied on a manufacturing process that exposed them to dangerous chemicals that likely compromised their health. The discovery shows that toxic substances of our own making have been around for a lot longer than we realized.
The vast majority of infectious human diseases come from animals, yet we know surprisingly little about which animals pose the greatest risk. A new study helps resolve this shortcoming, ranking the mammals that are most likely to spread infectious diseases to humans.
Where there are landfills there are seagulls. An estimated 1.4 million of these opportunistic feathered critters feed on these vast tracts of waste across North America. And as a new study from Duke University shows, the voluminous amounts of poop from these gulls is compromising the water-quality of nearby lakes and…
Late last month, an excavator operator was working at a peat bog in the Polish municipality of Mircze when he accidentally stumbled upon this glorious specimen of 14th century craftsmanship. The remarkably well-preserved longsword is a unique find for the area, and its discovery has prompted an archaeological…
Dipping bread in a bowl of fresh, extra virgin olive oil ranks as one of the most pleasurable gastronomic experiences possible. But as this new Reactions video explains, there’s more to this delicious and surprisingly healthy condiment than meets the eye.
See that faint, blue dot in the middle of this NASA image? That’s the Curiosity rover making its way up the rocky slopes of Mount Sharp. The robotic lander, now approaching its fifth year of operation, has never looked so lonely.
An ongoing reexamination of an ancient Egyptian wooden toe is shedding new light on how the remarkable wooden prosthetic was manufactured, and whether it was used for cosmetic or functional purposes.
We typically think of large predatory animals like mountain lions as fearless beasts that’ll stop at nothing to procure a meal—even if that meal consists of human flesh. New research suggests that this view is wrong, and that big cats don’t like to bump into us any more than we like to bump into them. Problem is, this…
Banana slugs are slow. Like, ridiculously slow. Watching them eat is tantamount to watching paint dry, which is why Canadian photographer R. Jeanette Martin wisely set her phone to record in timelapse mode when she encountered a particularly hungry mollusk in her garden.
Each year, thousands of wildebeest drown while making their annual migration through the Serengeti. New research shows how the resulting two million pounds of rotting flesh performs a crucial role in maintaining the region’s vibrant ecosystem.
A vintage camera from the early 20th century containing a roll of undeveloped film has yielded an extraordinary set of images showing the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, considered among the most disastrous volcanic eruptions in US history.
